


all these hours between us

by CoralAcacia



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Hackers, F/M, Getting Together, let's all try believing in love again!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoralAcacia/pseuds/CoralAcacia
Summary: Take two of the most dangerous and capable hackers in all of Amsterdam and put them together. What do you get? A love story, of course. (College AU)
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 31
Kudos: 186





	all these hours between us

**Author's Note:**

> this is called "self indulgent modern au" in my google docs, so take from that what you will. title is from greyson chance's "yours," to which this fic was written.

Inej awakes at three in the morning to the sound of her phone ringing. It is the Friday before exams are set to begin, a cold and quiet December day in Amsterdam, and she had been hoping to sleep in this morning. Of course, she should have known better.

The phone stops ringing before she can grasp it. She sighs, and then it begins to ring again.

“What?” she says, not bothering to check the caller ID. Only one fool would be calling her at this hour.

On the other end of the line, Kaz Brekker rasps, “I had a breakthrough. Thought you might like to be here for it.”

She tosses a hand over her eyes. Removes it to confirm that her roommate is still asleep, completely oblivious to the disaster at hand. Says, at last, “I’m touched you thought of me, Kaz.” Makes clear that she is the furthest thing from touched.

Despite her many grievances, she finds herself rolling out of bed within a few moments and pulling on last night’s clothes. Her leggings are cold, her sweatshirt an unappealing lump. Inej shoves her feet into her boots resentfully, slings her bag over her shoulder bitterly, and departs from her dorm room with a distinct air of discontent, braid swinging along in her wake.

When she arrives at team headquarters — read, Kaz’s private apartment in downtown Amsterdam — the main room is quiet, lit only by the glow of three computer monitors. She rolls her eyes and flips the lights on.

At the center of the room, Kaz hisses and squints into the light, a dark shadow in the luminous room. “It’s not even four,” he says. “Show some respect.”

“For your theatrics?” Inej allows herself a small snort of laughter. “Never.”

Still, she turns the lights back off before sliding into the office chair at Kaz’s right hand. Though she despises his penchant for drama, she doesn’t mind the dark itself — in fact, she rather enjoys the cover it provides. In the dark, she can slip into nothingness, become no one.

A cup of coffee is pushed across the table in her direction wordlessly. She looks at it, and then at Kaz. His face has not changed, intent on his monitors as he is, and he will not acknowledge the nice thing he’s done for her. He never does.

If she were stronger, or perhaps bolder, Inej thinks she might call him on it. Force the words out of his mouth with a knife between his teeth. After all, these gestures have been piling up, the last few months — a late charge on a bill mysteriously cleared, her favorite kind of sushi deposited on her desk in the middle of midterm season, a new pair of gloves after she complained on a night out. And now, here, a cup of coffee at three in the morning.

It’s not that he isn’t like this with their other friends — unwilling to openly show affection, stubbornly attached to his cool facade — and it’s not that he hasn’t been doing these sorts of things for her since they first became acquainted two years ago, their first year at university.

It’s just that now, for some reason, she cannot _stop_ noticing these gestures, in all their seemingly-increasing abundance. And she cannot help but wish that he would add a word or two behind them, too.

“It’s just a cup of coffee,” he says now, startling her out of her thoughts. “If you’re not going to drink it at least pay attention to what I’ve found.” There is a gruffness to his voice that wasn’t there before, and she is grateful for the way the darkness covers up her blush. Perhaps he can acknowledge a gesture, after all. Just not exactly in the way she had hoped.

Inej sips at the cup of coffee, relishing in the way it warms her hands. When she feels collected once more, she says, “What did you find, then?”

Kaz quirks an eyebrow, folds his gloved hands behind his head. He’s wearing his usual attire — a crisp white dress shirt, neatly ironed slacks, and leather gloves — lending credence to her assumption that he has not slept. Perhaps, she considers, he never does. The circles under his eyes and the uncharacteristic rumple in his hair are the only indicators that Dirtyhands, bastard of the dark web, may just be human after all.

“I found,” Kaz says, “our mark.” He taps a finger against the screen, where neon green code has drawn a beautiful map straight to the name they have been hunting after for weeks. “Now we’ll just need to collect all the sealed legal documents and spread them around the web, and then we can collect our fat stack of Euros. How does spring break in Greece sound?”

Inej leans back in her chair and rolls the name over in her mind. _Jan Voorhees._ A minor, well-hidden government official whose image was captured at a smuggling den weeks ago and forwarded to them for investigation and exposure, with a hefty paycheck attached by the anonymous concerned citizen. Now that they have his name, digging up his past crimes will be no great task; she shudders at the prospect. His current crimes are gruesome enough.

Looking back at Kaz, Inej says, “I do have a new bikini I’d been hoping to break in. I wouldn’t mind Greece.” She watches him swallow his coffee slowly, notes the way his Adam’s apple bobs and his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around the mug.

“This would be a strictly educational trip,” he says, after a long moment. “Museums only.” He glances over at her, bitter coffee eyes glinting in challenge.

Inej stares back at him coolly over the rim of her own mug. “Perhaps I’ll finally achieve my dream of becoming a muse, then. I will be so hard to miss in so little silk.”

He opens his mouth, a sharp retort to upend her blatant lie undoubtedly lining the edge of his tongue, but before Kaz can say another word the front door flies open to reveal a pair of giggling, red-faced men. Jesper, dark-skinned and gangly, is clinging to Wylan, pale and angelic, for dear life, a paper crown precariously perched on his head.

Not everyone always uses reading week for its intended purpose.

The drunks stumble in, slamming the door behind them. Jesper presses a kiss to Inej’s cheek while Wylan gazes at Kaz adoringly. Then the two boys stumble off to the nearest bedroom, nary a word exchanged between the four of them.

“Remind me again,” Kaz says as he returns to typing, “why I keep them around.”

Inej begins scrolling through the code on her screen, looking for gaps and opportunities. “They’re your friends,” she says, “and they’re very good at real-world intimidation tactics when they aren’t drunk off their asses.”

Kaz places a hand over his heart, feigning hurt. “I’m great at real-world intimidation tactics. I once hacked that billboard over the highway and made it read _Death is imminent._ ”

“You know no one really reads those things, right? Because they’re busy driving?”

Kaz scowls and returns to his work.

In many ways, this night is not unfamiliar; evenings among their group are often like this, the two of them hacking away in the dark while Jesper and Wylan dream up new methods of intimidating their prey. Somewhere in Amsterdam’s Red Light district, Nina Zenik is charming the money out of a man’s pocket and the secrets out of his mouth, Matthias Helvar standing guard nearby. They have their roles, each of them, and after many years together they have learned to play them well. Deviance from the norm is unheard of.

Still, deviance feels inevitable, now, with this restlessness thrumming beneath Inej’s skin, this sinful desire to push Kaz just a little further with each passing moment. It isn’t kind, she knows, and it isn’t fair; caustic bastard though he is, he has his own dark and difficult past, just as she has hers. He doesn’t wear those gloves for comfort, after all. Still, she can’t help wishing for something more. Something tangible. A gesture that tells her, at last, the truth that she has come to hope for.

Tonight is not the night that her restlessness will be resolved, though. Instead, they work until the sun breaches the horizon, and then she curls herself up on his leather couch and allows herself to sleep for a time. When the full of the morning arrives, Kaz rouses Inej, Wylan, and Jesper, and they all make their way to the bakery around the corner.

The waffles there are heavenly, as they always are. Nina and Matthias slide into the booth at some point, smug with a night’s work well done, and the table grows loud and chaotic. There is talk of the work they have done, the classes they are failing, the parties they want to attend.

Inej begs her way out of the circle at eleven, determined not to waste her last full day of studying. Before she can completely extricate herself, however, there is a throat being cleared behind her. _Kaz._

She turns to look at him. “Don’t be late for our meeting Sunday,” he says. His eyes are hard and dark, even in the brilliant winter sunlight, and everyone has paused to watch the two of them as they face off.

Inej scowls. The Wraith is never late, and Kaz Brekker knows this.

Without another word, she leaves.

-

Inej completes three pages of her criminology paper that afternoon before she has to admit defeat, slumping over in her chair. Her desk is littered with textbooks and class notes, highlighters and scrapped news articles. Outside her window, she can see the sun setting over Amsterdam, painting it pink and gold.

After a few moments, her phone buzzes; everything on her desk rattles in response. She flips the offending device over and glares at the screen.

_drtyhnds: found an interesting lead to check out._

_drtyhnds: did you go to prom?_

Inej pinches the bridge of her nose lightly. No one gives her a headache quite like Kaz Brekker. And no one is better at taking the long way around a subject just to make a point.

_the_wraith: i did not_

She can almost imagine his scheming face now, trying to figure out what clever way he might work that information into an advantage for his new plot. Say what you will about Kaz Brekker, he never lets a punch knock him off his feet.

_drtyhnds: i’ll send nina over. for dress shopping._

_the_wraith: please god no_

_drtyhnds: darling inej, treasure of my heart, don’t fight this. it’ll be fun._

She throws her phone onto her bed and fights the urge to scream.

-

Shopping with Nina is never a rapid affair. They browse the Amsterdam dress shops at a leisurely pace on Saturday afternoon, with Inej finding herself stuffed into feathered monstrosity after glittery monstrosity. “What did Kaz tell you this was for?” Inej asks. Kaz Brekker never lies, but he also never tells the same version of a story twice.

“He said you two were going to a gala.” Nina pulls a snakeskin gown from the rack, holds it up again Inej, and frowns. “Is this his idea of a romantic overture?”

Inej bats the hideous gown away and selects a deep red number from further down. “It’s likely connected to the case we’ve been working on,” she says. “Kaz doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body.” The words feel wrong in her mouth, though; she knows that they are, in many ways, untrue. She has seen the way his eyes soften at the sight of balloon dogs in the hands of children, and the way he never pries about her difficult past, and the way he has always made her feel safe.

Love, she knows, comes in many different forms. And she knows him well enough by now to understand that at the very least he cares about her, just as he cares about every member of their little group.

It isn’t his fault that she wishes — against all rational thought — that it might come to finally be something more.

Nina, oblivious to her thoughts, is humming in approval over the maroon gown she’s selected. It’s a one-shoulder silk slip, with a tame slit arcing up to the knee. “You just need to give him a little more time,” Nina comments absently. “Stop pushing him back into his shell.”

“I am not —”

A fair brow is arched in her direction. “I heard about the bikini comment.”

“It was that bad?” Kaz hardly ever discloses the contents of their inane conversations to others, and she can’t help feeling embarrassed.

Nina laughs. “Depends on your definition of bad, I suppose.” She walks with purpose towards the dressing room. “He looked like he was either contemplating your murder or your betrothal in retaliation. Always hard to tell. You know how he is.”

With a huff, Inej snatches the gown out of her hands and steps into the dressing room. She tugs the dress on, relishing the feel of the silk against her skin. She hasn’t worn clothes this fine in a long while, not since she was a young girl performing with her family in New Delhi. The things that have happened between then and now feel like they could span an entire lifetime in and of themselves.

As she swings open the door, Nina is chipping away at her nail polish and commenting, “You know, I would really rather like to go to Greece for spring break, so if you two would —” Her words break off at the sight of Inej, replaced by a lovely red grin. “Nice,” Nina says. “Very, very nice.”

They buy the dress with money earned from exposing a bastard cop and then go for waffles at another local shop. As Nina fills her stomach to the brim, Inej dissects the flaws of her most recent criminology paper and frets the repetition of those same errors in her final work for the class.

Nina, wise as ever, rebuts every concern with skill, and by the time it is evening Inej feels more relaxed than she has in a long while. She takes the rooftops home, skipping from balcony to chimney with ease. Though not quite a tightrope, they still present the kind of challenge that warms her heart and reminds her of the place she came from, and she is grateful for it all: for the shadows, and the tiles, and the friends fate has brought her way.

She sleeps well. None of her usual nightmares haunt her, tonight; instead, she dances in her dreams, and wakes with a smile on her face.

-

“You’re late,” Kaz says. He’s standing in his living room, fastening the gold clasp of his watch around his wrist. It is exactly seven o’clock. The suit he’s wearing is a fine charcoal set, tailored to his ropey frame by the hands of a god, and his ostentatious crow-headed cane is leaning against the table. His gloves are not on yet; his hands are pale in the light. He studiously does not look at Inej.

She approaches him slowly, feet silent in her black slippers. Heels, she believes, were designed only for women who have never been unsafe. When she is a few paces away from him, she stops. “I’m five minutes early,” she says.

He looks up at her at last. Have his eyes always been so flat and dark, split wide open? She is not sure. He drinks her in for a brief moment, his eyes lingering in no particular place and looking with no particular hunger. She thinks of the men who once traded her and enslaved her, all those years ago. She thinks of how his eyes are nothing like theirs. He says, “I can never pass up the chance to get under your skin.”

She tries not to think of the way his lips look as they form those words. “You’ll have to work harder than that, Brekker,” she says coolly. “Now tell me what we’re getting into.”

He does. It’s a simple operation, really: pilfering a few documents from the foreign ministry, documents that only exist in paper format, and uploading them to the web for greater circulation.

The court of public opinion will finish the work from there. It should take thirty minutes, at most. The rest of the night will be for show.

“We’ll be acting as student representatives, sent by the university to gain government experience,” he says, laying out two name badges for _Gustoff Holm_ and _Anika Jansen_ on the table. She struggles to contain a smile as she thinks about how perhaps in a different life the two of them might really be representatives of their university, eager for a night of political gossip and the chance to spend more time together. In another life, this might be a date.

Inej thins her lips suddenly at that last thought. It is no use thinking like that, she knows; they are vigilante hackers, protectors of the masses, far more than they are just students. Their scars run too deep to allow for any sense of normalcy. And until Kaz proves himself willing to lower his walls, to admit to what she hopes for and suspects, she will continue to be the protector of her own heart.

They discuss the details further, no portion of the plan left untouched, and then they climb into their waiting Uber. As they wind through the brightly lit streets, Inej notices that Kaz is still gloveless. She catches her eye and nods in the direction of his hands.

He looks at his lockpick fingers and pale palms as though seeing them for the first time. “I’m working,” he says, “on going without. Because of what you said.”

Inej tilts her head in question.

“Last summer,” Kaz elaborates. “We were on a job. You asked me if I would ever be bold enough to let my hands breathe, or if I would simply be content to drown in my own sweat.” He is looking out the window, unwilling to face her as he speaks. The back of his head offers no clues as to what might be going on behind his eyes.

But she sees, now, that perhaps it is not foolish to hope. Even as they pass the rest of the ride in silence, never quite meeting each other’s gaze, Inej allows the flame flickering in her heart to burn a bit brighter. Just enough to keep her warm while she waits.

-

The gala is a textbook example of splendor. Chandeliers drip golden light from the ceilings, and waiters slip through the crowd with tasteful trays of appetizers balanced on their palms. Priceless art hangs from every wall. Inej takes it all in, and finds herself wishing fiercely for the quiet of Kaz’s apartment. Crowds have never been well-suited to the Wraith.

“Don’t disappear on me,” Kaz says at her ear. His left hand, now gloved, rests at her elbow; the other has an easy grip on his cane. All traces of their conversation in the car have disappeared from his face. Dirtyhands has come to see the job done. And sure enough, he begins to spin them around the room, drifting from conversation to conversation, the very picture of forgettable, middling charm. Before long, they are slipping unnoticed through a back doorway, drifting deeper into the halls of the building.

Inej says, “Who knew Dirtyhands could have such a silver tongue.”

He bats at her ankles with his cane, and she leaps out of reach with all the grace an acrobat should possess. He says, “Maybe if you were sweeter to me, my darling, you would be privy it more often.”

Inej snorts. “We both know you care nothing for sweetness, Kaz.” They pause outside an office door, Inej taking the position of lookout as Kaz works to undo the lock.

After a few seconds, the lock snaps open. He meets her eyes. “I might allow myself the occasional indulgence,” he says. Then they enter the room and begin sorting files. It is dull work, especially in the low light of the room. The knife strapped to her thigh feels as though it’s growing colder by the minute; a cool bead of sweat trickles down her spine.

At last, they locate the documents. Inej snaps photos on their burner phone to save for encryption later, and then Kaz slips the various papers back into place. They’re just on their way out of the room when a security guard turns the corner, flashlight cutting through the corridor. There’s no time to pretend they were doing anything other than sneaking around.

“What are you two doing back here?” the guard demands. Inej fights the urge to flee, to become nothing more than another shadow in the night. The advantage of being anonymous hackers is that she and Kaz are no more notorious in the real world than any average Joe. They could be, for all this guard knows, absolutely anyone.

As she watches, Kaz tightens his grip on his cane and smiles — a shark who has just smelled fresh blood. “Apologies,” Kaz says. “My lady and I were just looking for a place to lay low for the rest of the evening. For… recreational purposes.”

Inej feels herself flush scarlet as the guard laughs. “No place for that back here,” he says. “Best be on your way.”

They’ve just begun exiting the hallway when Kaz pauses and turns on his heel. “Say,” he says convivially, “does your name happen to be Karl Roe?”

The guard looks surprised. “Do I know you, sir?”

“Not at all,” Kaz says smoothly. “I believe we merely share mutual friends. A good evening to you.” Without another word, he ushers Inej away, back into the crowded ballroom.

“What was that?” she hisses as they melt into the melee.

He plucks a delicate tart from a passing tray and holds it between them as though it is the center of their conversation. “The bastard cop we exposed months ago,” he says in a low tone, “is now a bastard security guard.”

Inej swears and plucks the tart from his hand, popping it in her mouth before he can object. “I don’t know why you’re smiling, _Gustoff._ ”

Kaz laughs, a harsh and delighted sound. “Don’t you realize? We’ve just found ourselves in the middle of a government corruption scheme.” He snatches two more tarts from another tray and pops them in his mouth, closing his eyes as a dreamy smile takes over his face. “So. Much. Money.”

-

Finals week and winter break pass in a hectic and uninteresting blur. Inej splits her time between places over the holidays, spending the first few weeks tidying up loose ends in the recently-unveiled corruption scheme, sleeping on Kaz’s couch and trying not to imagine him stripped down and vulnerable on the other side of the wall. The latter weeks of break she spends at the Van Eck ski lodge with Jesper, Wylan, and Nina. Kaz refuses to come, citing his leg and the continuing presence of evil in the world, and Matthias seconds that sentiment, citing his work schedule and a distaste for tiny houses.

It is an easy and fun time, being in the mountains. Inej weaves her way down the slopes all day and then defrosts in front of the fire with a mug of chocolate at night. She finds, for once, that she feels her age, twenty and happy and relieved of any responsibility to uncover crime and save the average citizen.

It is easy and fun, and still, she misses Kaz. She wonders what he’s occupying himself with, these last few weeks of break. Work is the likely answer — he has hardly gone a day without some sort of business to attend to in all the years she’s known him — but she entertains herself nonetheless with the unlikely possibility that he is becoming fat on pints of vanilla bean ice cream as he waits for her to return to him.

In the weeks she is away, he messages her only about business, but always in that same roundabout way of his.

_drtyhnds: did you ever go to the opera as a child?_

_drtyhnds: imagine yourself in a metal box. what dimensions first came to mind?_

_drtyhnds: bring me two pine needles when you return._

_drtyhnds: say both of my legs were shattered. which body part would you go for next?_

_drtyhnds: tell me what you feed the birds. they miss you._

Well, the last message is not so much about business. She is so used to the bizarre and winding nature of his questionings, though, that she does not realize it until some time later, as they’re taking the train back to Amsterdam. She rereads the message, shielding the phone from Nina’s prying eyes, and smiles to herself as the countryside races past.

Perhaps the new year promises to be interesting, after all.

-

She comes down with a terrible flu at the end of January. The illness wreaks havoc on her stomach and her lungs and her strength, confining her to her room for an agonizing number of days. Friends are in and out, during that time. There is Nina with stacks of waffles Inej cannot keep down, and Wylan with a flute solo that causes her roommate to drive him from the room. There is Jesper with a nauseating array of card tricks, and Matthias with disturbing Russian folk tales.

“Is this supposed to help me sleep?” Inej grumbles into her pillow, one evening, as he reads to her. Her hair is plastered to her forehead with sweat, her bones aching with the force of the disease.

Matthias pats her on the head. “No,” he says. “This is to build character.”

Her roommate, mercifully, drives him from the room, too.

It is in the afternoons that Kaz visits her, the warm sunlight washing him in a glow that makes him come alive. In the light, he is less of a monster and more of a boy she maybe, possibly, almost certainly loves.

She asks him why he comes, once. He says, “It would be a shame if I had to replace you.”

Curse her fool heart. Inej scowls and rolls over, pretending to be asleep until he makes himself scarce.

He comes back, though, in the days that follow. He brings her terrible canned soup, and watches with an unnerving interest as she manages a few spoonfuls on her own. He takes her temperature, and brings her cool cloths from the bathroom, and turns away while she struggles out of her sweaty clothes and into cleaner ones.

“Did you know who I was,” she asks, late one afternoon as dusk is setting in, “when we first ran into each other, freshman year?”

She is lying in bed, a cool cloth on her forehead. Her roommate, for once, is nowhere to be found. And Kaz is perched at the edge of the mattress, his back just barely pressed against her legs and his cane propped against his thigh. He’s wearing a dark sweatshirt over his collared shirt, and it looks soft and inviting.

He says, “I didn’t recognize you, no.”

“Even though you had saved me?”

Kaz gives her a look. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says dismissively. “I didn’t save you from those men. I just happened to slip you the power you needed to save yourself.”

Inej lets his words wash over her, gratifying and emboldening. “You know,” she says, after a moment, “I’m okay with waiting.” His eyes are endless, fathomless, infinite as they peer into hers. “But I won’t wait forever.”

He looks away, flexing his gloved fingers absently. Then, just when she thinks he might disappear, he looks back at her solemnly and nods. _I understand._

They stay as they are for some time, letting the dusk sweep them away to some otherworldly state of silence. It is fully dark and she is nearly asleep again when she feels him rise from the bed, slow and steady. And then — there, there, there — his breath is against her skin, warm and light, and his lips are brushing across her forehead, and he is trembling with the force of a thousand storms. She keeps her eyes closed as he pulls away, afraid to shatter the moment.

“Goodnight, Wraith,” he says, barely audible even in the emptiness of the room.

And then he is gone, the snick of the door signaling his exit and the imprint of his lips still burned into her forehead.

-

The easy lull of mid-semester means more time to dedicate to taking on her role as the Wraith, scourge of the Netherlands. Inej finds herself spending longer and longer nights at Kaz’s apartment, bouncing ideas off of Wylan while Kaz digs up a government secret or two, until she wakes up on the leather couch one Saturday morning and realizes that she has not slept in her own bed in almost a week. Her back has a crick in it that can only be the result of sleeping so long on the lumpy, slippery heap that passes for a couch.

She pads to the nearest bathroom, yawning and squinting her eyes against the watery early morning March light. The apartment is silent. When she slips open the door, though, her heart leaps into her throat. “Saints, Kaz,” she says. He is shirtless, bent over the sink with his left hand under the faucet. A trail of red blood runs circles around the drain.

He turns his head to look at her, eyes hard. “I’m taking care of it.”

Inej snorts in disbelief and goes to rummage through the linen closet for disinfectant and bandages. When she returns to the bathroom, he has not moved, and is simply staring at the water as though it might hold the answers to all of life’s questions.

There is something disconcerting about Kaz right now, at this early morning hour. It is not the shirtlessness — in the weeks they spent working together over winter break, she learned that he is distinctly lacking any sense of modesty. It is not the sizeable cut, either; she has seen her fair share of blood in her lifetime. What might it be?

And then she catches it, as he turns to look at her once more with his fierce eyes. There, at the tops of his cheeks, is the faint stain of a blush.

He is embarrassed.

“What were you doing when you acquired this fine piece of work?” she asks, cool and casual. As she speaks, she holds her hand out to him: a request. For permission. For trust.

He places his bare and injured hand in hers with little more than a shudder, and she cannot help but be impressed. Inej does not know what exactly it is that haunts him so — something to do with a dead brother and a plague, she has heard — but she does know that the trauma runs deep. More than that, she understands the force it takes to build yourself bigger than your demons. And so to have seen him increasingly gloveless in the month since her sickness — to be holding his hand _right now_ — is no small or accidental feat. She values it.

In response to her question, he says, “I was cutting something.”

“Something other than your hand?”

Kaz fixes her with a look fit for murder. She smiles and returns to cleaning his cut, taking care to wipe the blood from the fate lines on his palm.

“I was cutting food,” he begins again, and then stops.

When it becomes clear he has no intention of finishing the story without prodding, she says, “Go on.” Her tone is far more hushed than she meant it to be. Together, their hands tremble, and this time she is not sure who started it.

Kaz clears his throat. “I made something for you,” he says, stiffly, after another moment.

Inej hurries to cover her surprise, keeping her eyes fixed on the complicated bandaging at hand. When his palm is wrapped tightly, she runs her thumb over the space where his wound lies. He quivers at her touch. “As long as you didn’t get blood on it,” she says, “I’m sure it’s fine.” And now, finally, she does dare to look up at him, to meet his gaze.

He is looking down at her with an intensity that no one has ever looked at her with before. His eyes are a warm chocolate in the yellow light of the bathroom, and his fingers are curling almost imperceptibly around hers. It is hard to recall the last time she took a breath in. His skin, pale and scarred and so much, is everywhere around her, swallowing her whole. “Inej,” he rasps.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for bandaging my hand.”

When he drops her hand and leaves the bathroom, brushing past her to get through the doorway, she finds herself left leaning against the sink, immobilized. She cannot remember the last time he thanked her for anything.

Even looking at her reflection is like seeing someone from another world: there is a flush rising along her bronze skin, and redness appearing at her bitten lips. Her braid is messy and half-undone, draping over a shoulder with abandon; her t-shirt is too loose, dragging against her thighs. She looks unbelievably wild.

In the month since Kaz brushed his lips across her forehead, they have not spoken of the incident. They have simply continued to dance around each other, sharp words and easy banter passing between them like normal. If there have been more lingering glances than usual, more late nights spent alone, that is no one’s business but their own.

After a moment, she finds the bravery to step out of the bathroom and join Kaz in the half kitchen. He is standing at the counter, hunched over something she cannot see. From a few paces away, she says, “Do I get to know what you were sacrificing life and limb for?”

He looks over his shoulder at her and scowls. “I have to unseal a few court documents this morning, and then I have two econ papers to write.”

“Not what I asked, Brekker.”

With an air of great suffering, he at last shifts to the side so that she can see what he’s been working on. There on the counter, golden and frosted and beautiful, is a honey cake. The layers are lopsided, and honey and frosting run down the sides freely, but it is still, she thinks, the nicest thing she has ever been presented with. “My hand slipped doing the layers,” Kaz says. He is looking at the cake instead of at her, and so she takes a few steps closer.

“What’s the occasion?” she asks.

He clears his throat. Shifts on his feet. “There isn’t one. You don’t have to bother with it.”

Inej steps closer still, until they are nearly chest to chest once more. “Kaz,” she says, “I like that you remembered. That you know it’s my favorite. I like that you did this.” Her hand comes up to cradle his cheek, and he closes his eyes and leans into her touch, his face equal parts an expression of pleasure and pain.

“I wish,” he chokes out, after a few seconds, “that I could give you more, Inej.” And he says her name like a prayer.

She pulls her hand away. “With time, you will,” she says, and her tone brooks no argument. _So this is what it looks like when you let yourself breathe,_ she does not say. Her heart is swelling, threatening to crush her other organs.

They take the cake to the rickety kitchen table and eat it quietly. It is not a perfect thing, but Inej does not care, because it is her thing. “Should we save some for Jesper and Wylan?” she asks after polishing off her second piece.

Kaz looks up from his cake to raise an eyebrow. “They’re in Bern for the weekend.”

“On what business?”

“I think they said _fun._ Romantic vacation? I stopped listening three words in.”

Inej smiles. “So you definitely didn’t send them off on an inane business trip just so you could have an excuse to present me with this cake in peace?”

He leans back easily in his chair and folds his arms. There is a tattoo on his right bicep, a bold R, and she makes a note to ask him about it later. Now, though, she listens as he says, “Inej, come now. People are not pawns.”

“Puppets, then?”

Kaz smiles his shark smile, looking every inch a dark prince about to wield the full force of his power. “You should know,” he says in a low tone, “that I don’t need any help getting you alone. Fortune simply smiled upon me this weekend.”

As he clears their dishes, she places her face flat on the table and tries to keep herself from melting. Perhaps she should have known better than to ask Kaz, a man who has never done anything by halves, for more. _He looked like he was plotting either your murder or your betrothal,_ Nina had said, months ago.

Why not both?

-

The next night, she has a nightmare. She is asleep in Wylan and Jesper’s bed, the massive comforter wrapped tight around her body, pulled close enough to choke. She thrashes against her captor, against the pain, hard enough that she finally snaps awake.

Everything is dark and silent. And then there is a sudden movement by her head and she cannot help it; she screams, and begins to cry.

The bedside light flickers on. It was only Kaz, reaching for the switch. Tears are still tracking down her cheeks, though, and in the sudden light she moves to hide herself under the covers. She feels his weight settle onto the bed.

“I only meant to help,” he says quietly. His hand settles on the comforter in the vicinity of her shoulder. “Can I help?”

When her tears are under control, she scoots further over on the bed, leaving more room between them. She wipes her face, even as she knows it will do nothing to keep him from knowing she has cried, and resurfaces from under the sheets. “Just a nightmare,” she says bravely.

“Would you like me to leave?”

Her hand shoots out to grasp his wrist before he can so much as shift away from her. “Stay,” she says.

And he does. He readjusts so that he is sitting on top of the covers with his back against the headboard, looking down at her as she rubs her eyes. “Does this happen often?” he asks after a moment. He looks more unsure, she thinks, than she has ever seen before.

“Maybe every few weeks,” Inej admits. It costs her, to own up to her weakness, her inability to fully conquer her past.

Next to her, Kaz clenches his fist. He does not have to ask what she dreams about, because he was the one who uncovered it and unwittingly, easily, mercifully ended her year-long nightmare. “Aren’t they all in prison?”

Inej places a hand over his until he relaxes. “Justice can only bring so much peace,” she says softly. She stares at the ceiling. “Hurt is a different matter altogether.”

He is silent for some time, mulling that over. At last, he asks, “What can I do?”

“Keep talking.”

And so, at last, Kaz Brekker sheds his gloves and his armor and allows himself to breathe fully before her. He tells her about Jordie, about a lonely and broken childhood on the streets of Amsterdam. About the plague that took his brother and the canals that chewed him up and spat him back out, twisted and scarred. His hands are toying with the ends of her hair as he speaks, absently brushing them out, and when his story is finished she places her hands over his once more.

Then he moves into the mundane: the strenuous requirements of his major, the uselessness of theoretical economics in the face of a corrupt system, the carnival that’s coming to town in a few weeks. “Maybe they could hire me,” Inej says sleepily. Her eyes are closed, but she imagines that he might be smiling in response. He has always loved to test her talents, sending her scrambling up bell towers and across the roofs of Amsterdam just for the hell of it. He has always trusted her not to fall.

“I could never let them take you,” Kaz says. “You’re too valuable.” And she knows that he might hope that she takes it in a business way, but it has also become abundantly clear, these last few months, that that is not all she is to him. Only Inej Ghafa could ever call Kaz Brekker on his drama and his greed and live to tell the tale.

Eventually, he lies down next to her on the bed and turns off the light. His hand squeezes hers in question, and she responds in kind — an assurance. _This is okay._ There are oceans of bed between them, drawn together only by their fingertips and palms and wrists. “Sleep,” she says to him.

And they do.

-

When she wakes in the morning, he is wrapped around her, an arm draped over her waist and his ankle twisted across hers. Her nose is tucked into his neck. Afraid to disturb him, to wake him and frighten him and bring the waters rushing back in, she remains still. His skin is warm where her face just barely touches it; the covers still separate them, mostly, and she is both grateful for and resentful of that fact.

Then there are voices from outside the room, loud and insistent, and so she pulls back at last, only to find that Kaz is already awake, simply looking at her. “Morning,” he says, just as the door to the room is unceremoniously shoved open.

“Really?” Jesper says from the doorway. He is holding a suitcase in one hand and a plaid scarf in the other. “You literally have your own bed across the hall, Kaz. What kind of welcome back is this?” Wylan peers over his shoulder, looking intrepid and rosy in the morning sun.

Kaz rolls over onto his back, folding his arms behind his head, and fixes Jesper with a cool gaze. “How was Bern?”

Jesper, incredulous, shoots a variety of questioning and accusatory stares at Inej, and then at Kaz. When he finally realizes that they are both determined to not discuss the position they’ve been found in, he huffs and steps further into the room. “Out,” he says. “Right now. My vacation high is ruined.”

Rolling her eyes, Inej obliges, and soon enough the two of them are alone in the living room, the door slammed behind them. Kaz limps to the kitchen and begins making a fresh pot of coffee. “You stayed,” Inej notes as she trails after him.

He glances up at her, and then goes back to measuring the grounds. “I was rather comfortable.”

“Was it me or the bed?”

“The bed,” he says. “Obviously.”

She is late for class that morning, predictably, and only realizes once she is there that she is wearing one of Kaz’s sweatshirts, its smell sharp and overwhelming. Her attention span is nonexistent; this philosophy class is boring, especially when compared to the thrill of surviving the night and waking up with Kaz’s heart in her hands. She is glad when, halfway through, her phone buzzes with a message.

_drtyhnds: i believe you have something of mine._

_drtyhnds: come to dinner with me tonight and i won’t hold it against you._

_the_wraith: you could just ask me out like a normal person, you know_

_drtyhnds: what would be the fun in that?_

-

They do end up making it to Greece, but not until the end of August. Life is sometimes too complicated for things to fall into place just when we would like, after all.

The water in Mykonos is unbelievably blue and just cold enough to be refreshing. Kaz, put out, finds himself frequenting the beach far more often than any museums. He seems to mind that fact less, though, when Inej’s sunscreened hands are on him, trying to protect his pale skin from the sun. These days, his shudders and his nausea and his fear have become passing things that can be worked through; though there are always steps back, the healing is hard to deny. Hope is cresting the horizon.

Today, they find themselves at a secluded corner of the beach. The sand is white and warm between Inej’s toes. Next to her, Kaz is grousing about how no self-respecting vigilante should ever have to endure having sand in his swimsuit.

“A shame,” she notes. “You’ll have to take ‘self-respecting’ off your resume. What will even be left?”

He scowls at her. “You are most unkind, Inej.”

“Only because I love you.”

Jesper runs past at that moment, two towels and an umbrella in his hands. A moment later, a very dazed and sunburnt Matthias is chasing after him, sand flying everywhere, while Nina cackles in delight from somewhere further down the beach.

Inej, foolishly, hopes this might prove interesting to Kaz. Instead, he knocks his pinky toe against hers and says, “I know.”

“Thanks, Han Solo,” she snaps, embarrassed at her slip up and unable to believe this is really happening.

When she does manage to look at him, though, she finds that he’s leaned closer, his scheming face out in full force. Breath becomes scarce between them. “I dream about you every night,” he says, in a tone meant just for the two of them. “And I learned how to bake in hopes that it might finally make you fall for me. And the first time we met, I knew that one way or the other, you would someday be the end of me.” He kisses her shoulder, light as a feather. “Don’t act like you don’t know, too.”

Inej looks at him, and she knows that he is right, and that he is telling the truth. She looks at him, and she smiles. Perhaps, she thinks, she never needed a knife to pry him open after all, to pull his words out from between his teeth. She only ever needed to ask. “You wouldn’t happen to be trying to soften me up for something, would you, Brekker?”

He looks out over the ocean, the line of his jaw sharp and powerful. She would follow him anywhere, really, and she is afraid that he might already know that. But all he says is, “This is just part of the long game.”

“Who’s the mark?”

“You, of course,” he answers. “By my side until I’m finally carted off to prison for my various violations of international law.”

Inej raises a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “I would come visit you every once in awhile, I suppose,” she says.

“Ah,” Kaz says. He rakes a sandy hand through his hair and looks the closest to happy she has ever seen him, void of any greed or cunning. In this moment, the goodness he always denies possessing is unavoidable, and it transforms him. From a man to a saint. From Dirtyhands to a soul washed clean. He looks at her, and he asks, “What more could a man ever want?”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, and my apologies to anyone who actually knows anything about the netherlands or coding! comments always appreciated. scream with me anytime on my relatively inactive tumblr @pairrish !


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